


Feel the Ending at the Start

by redqueentheory, Wildgoosery



Series: I'm With the Band [16]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alcohol, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Begging, Biting, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fantasizing, Hair-pulling, Kissing, M/M, Masturbation, Possessive Behavior, Rough Kissing, Rough Sex, Scratching, Truly astonishing levels of miscommunication, eventual OT3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 20:23:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14172711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redqueentheory/pseuds/redqueentheory, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wildgoosery/pseuds/Wildgoosery
Summary: Brad hounds himself back into business as usual. Taako defends his decision to avoid the cafeteria. Kravitz is, infuriatingly, right about several things.





	Feel the Ending at the Start

Brad doesn’t think he’s done anything differently. He might have been a bit shorter ending his calls than normal, and he didn’t come out of his office for the usual mid-morning chat, but- well. He’s been doing that less than usual, lately. Things are very busy.

But Charity has been shooting significant looks at him through the blinds all morning, no matter how hard he tries to avoid her eye, and finally she just gives up and gets up, crosses to his office and shuts the door behind her.

“You’ve heard,” she says.

“You might have to provide a little more detail than that,” he tells her coolly, without looking up from the reconciliation.

“You’ve heard about Taako’s date.”

“You know how I feel about intra-organisational gossip, Charity,” he says, keeping his tone neutral through sheer force of will.

“I know you pretend to disapprove of it while secretly filing it all away in your brain in case you need to use it against someone,” she says, just as neutral. Brad finally looks up at her, reluctant. “You have heard about it.”

He couldn’t have avoided it. He’d walked through at least three conversations about it on his way to work this morning, and the fantasy Starbucks had essentially been functioning as a noticeboard for Bureau employees to publicly air their theories about the (handsome) (polite) (charming) stranger who’d accompanied Taako to the Chug ‘n’ Squeeze last night.

“He seemed all right when he dropped past last week - wasn’t he? He hasn’t been here since, though,” Charity says, and it’s a perfectly reasonable and innocuous thing to say and he has to quash the urge to snap at her. It’s not her fault, the memory the question provokes; a sleepless night, staring at the ceiling, thinking about the thin wobble of Taako’s voice as he left Brad’s apartment. The foolish, selfish miscalculation that Brad had made to bring them both to that point. The pointed silence from Taako even after he returned from Refuge, a silence Brad could hardly object to, given they weren’t exactly- they weren’t even-

He cuts off the thought before it can go anywhere else. “No, he hasn’t.” Sighs. “Yes, I heard about the date.”

The look Charity gives him is inscrutable. “Are you-”

“If you intend to end that question with any word other than ‘busy’, I urge you to rethink it.”

“Don’t use the voice on me. We’ve dealt with this.” Charity taps her nails on his desk. “Are you going to talk to him about it?”

Brad leans back in his chair, puts the pen down. “Why would I? His spare time is his own business.” It’s easier if he plays at being _jilted_ , as though it’s as simple as Taako finding someone new and exciting to fuck, rather than… Brad failing completely in his responsibilities, badly overstepping a boundary, damaging whatever they’d been starting to build. And then, the painful embarrassment of an unanswered voicemail salt in the wound; a wound of his own making, of course, but-

“I just know you’re the type not to leave things unresolved,” she says, bland. He’s grateful to her for not pitying him; grateful to be able to build a fiction of simple rejection around the odd, hollow feeling in his chest.

“I’d say it’s quite resolved,” he says, dryly. “If the rapturous gushing about last night’s visitor is to be believed.”

She scoffs. “Hearsay.”

“Of course,” he agrees, “but telling nonetheless.” Enough of Taako’s date had been conducted in public to provoke gossip at all. A marked contrast to the arrangement, with Taako’s insistence on privacy and deniability and separation from the rest of Taako’s life.

A non-committal hum, and she repeats the nail tap. “I think you should ask him about it.”

“I think you should get back to work,” Brad says, gentler than the words would imply. “We’ve both got a lot to do today.” There’s another spike of gratitude as she takes the dismissal, backing out of his office with a sigh.

“Let me know if you need another coffee.”

“I will.”

*

As much as he wouldn't ever tell her, Brad does come out of the conversation with Charity with a reluctant resolution to talk to Taako. Properly. Face to face. He hadn’t been thinking clearly when he’d cast Suggestion; too eager to lead Taako into his own downfall, and then too disarmed by the unselfconscious enthusiasm the spell had let loose to properly consider the consequences. He understands Taako’s reaction; knows it was because of how vulnerable he’d felt, how bare. He understands it, because the unacknowledged voicemail has Brad feeling something of the same.

Thinking about it like that makes him want to cringe away from his own self-awareness, because how _ludicrous_ , how self-indulgent and ridiculous and childish of him, to have been rendered useless and dumbfounded by fifteen minutes of unguarded affection hurled his way by a charmed target. And how- pathetic, to have spent the last few weeks paralysed by indecision about addressing the state of things, when based on the gossip which is currently ricocheting around the moonbase at the speed of light, a comfortably good-looking stranger has been meeting Taako’s needs perfectly well.

So that's... fine.

Brad is a practical person. Knowing where he stands regarding the end of the arrangement is useful, a strategy for drawing a line around this part of his life, sealing it off in a box marked 'done'. And as much as he’s dreading it, frustrated by his failure to estimate just how painful and awkward it would be, he _does_ leave his office that day with every intention of organising a discussion. Steels himself to call Taako and make an appointment, or at the very least find a way to run into him casually in the cafeteria and suggest a quick chat.

But then he's kept unexpectedly busy with reports and permits and arrangements for various members of the Bureau other than the Reclaimers to go planetside. He eats at his desk for an entire week, which he usually avoids, but it's that or take work home so. No cafeteria. No free time for a meeting. He nearly dials Taako's frequency a number of times, but he's interrupted for various, unimportant reasons, and then the attempts at initiating contact slow, and slow, and suddenly it's been- well. It's been long enough that it just feels awkward, now. He doesn't know what he'd say. Particularly since - notably - there's no attempt by Taako to contact him, either.

The knowledge burrows its way into his chest, settles there heavily, undeniable. Lack of action is an action. He knows that very well.

So for the first time since he took this role, Brad lets an undesirable situation run its course. They don't speak. He still draws the line around the - he can't really think of a reason not to call it a relationship, so. He draws a line around the relationship, marks it 'done', tries to ignore how his brain appends '?' whenever he thinks about it, mostly succeeds. Starts to move on, which of course is when the fates or gods or luck or whatever's responsible for this whole mess decides to punch him in the nose.

*

Late afternoon. Cheerful orange sunlight pouring through cracks in the curtains, catching in Taako’s sex-tangled hair, a nimbus on the pillow. A tableau that’s lately settled into routine, unremarked upon but most definitely noted. Kravitz’s schedule isn’t built around the needs of mortals; his cycles of responsibility are synced with the tides of the lake of souls, not the rotation of a planet. At first, he’d call when he had a few free hours, and drop by for a glass of wine and a tumble in bed, an evening stroll through the quad, a chat over morning coffee. Recently, he’s found himself trading shifts and rearranging his calendar to buy himself larger allotments -- whole days, like this one, spent largely in bed.

Kravitz lays a hand on Taako's bare stomach. Wonders, as he often does, at the unlikely chain of circumstance which landed him here.

Taako stretches, a loud yawn and a feline arch. Muscles shifting deliciously under Kravitz's palm. "I'm hungry," he says.  

Kravitz skims his fingertips along the point of one hip. "You could eat."

"There's nothing in the kitchen." Taako grins at him and reaches up to poke his cheek with one finger. "For _some reason_ I didn't get around to grocery shopping last night."

Kravitz swats his hand away. “I seem to recall there being a cafeteria on this moon of yours.”

"Nope."

“It may not meet your exacting professional standards but-”

“Cannot.”

Kravitz props his chin in one hand. "So when you pointed to that large dome and said, ‘There’s the cafeteria,’ you were just having a go? Misidentifying buildings for sport?”

"Don’t be a smartass.”

“Oh I’d _never_.”

Taako snorts. “Yes we _have_ one, I just can’t go for like..." He cranes his neck to get a better view of the clock, perched atop a stack of old magazines. "Woof. ‘Nother hour at least."

Kravitz frowns. "Do you... eat in _shifts_? Is there some shortage of tables?”

“Har har.”

“No really, aren’t you something of a Bureau celebrity? Doesn’t that earn you the right to dine at leisure? Or is there some sort of a VIP arrangement that-”

“Yes you’re very funny now forget it.”

“Ohhhhhh no,” Kravitz says. “Oh now I _must_ know.”

“Your drama radar is fucking ruthless.”

“It _is_ and the pings have grown quite loud, please relieve my suffering.”

"Ugh.” Taako’s legs are draped across Kravitz’s lap, and now he lifts them both to hook around Kravitz’s torso, crossed at the ankles and squeezing just hard enough to win a little _oof_. “Forget I said anything, it’s fine.”

Kravitz laughs and shoves at Taako’s legs until they loosen. “I’d rather you not go hungry-”

“How’s about I just eat you."

"Taako."

"C'mere." Taako holds out his arms, hands flickering between fists and splayed fingers. "Gimme a snack."

Kravitz runs a hand along one warm, coppery thigh. It would be easier, and likely more pleasant, to allow himself to be redirected. But he’s absolutely rubbish at letting small mysteries lie, and so he nudges, just a little. "You have to wait another hour because...?"

"Babe, c'mon, I dun wanna." Taako kicks his feet, petulant. "It's just stupid shit, forget it."

“Stupid how?"

Taako blows out a frustrated sigh, cheeks rounded. "Listen, don't make a thing out of this."

He cups Taako's knee in his palm, fighting back the triumphant grin that wants to spread across his face. "All right."

"The guy," Taako says. Looking deliberately at the ceiling. "My, ah. My ex. He eats at like, grandpa hours.”

Kravitz circles Taako's knee with a fingertip. "And you’d prefer not to see him.”

“If we just hole up here until six he'll be gone, he’s clockwork about this shit."

This particular matter Kravitz has honestly, truly been doing his best not to pry about -- has hardly said a thing on the topic since their second night together. He knows enough of what happened for his own selfish purposes, and what business of his is it, really, whether Taako’s had sufficient closure with some other man? Why should he care if Taako’s properly understood the dynamics at play? Whether there’s some chance at friendly reconciliation, rather than the abrupt silence that seems to have snapped down between them after an evening gone poorly?

But in this moment, having already leaned in so far, he can’t resist the urge to ask, “Have you not spoken with him since-”

“No,” Taako mutters, “and don’t you fuckin’ judge me.”

Kravitz flips through his scant mental folio of Former Moon Lover Details, which may as well be a single sheet of paper reading “male Bureau employee.” He says, “But you _work_ together, surely it’s unavoidable?” And then, remembering an off-hand comment from a few weeks prior, “Were you joking when you said you had to fill out a form? Is he in some sort of… management position?"

"Human resources," Taako mutters.

"Well that's a bit racist."

“Listen, we’ve steered clear of each other this long, pretty sure I can keep it going,” Taako says. “I’m like, a _champion_ of avoiding people in close quarters, it’s a little uncanny if I’m honest. One time I dodged Avi for like two weeks ‘cuz I thought he was hitting on me and boy _howdy_ was walking in on him and Mags awkward after that shit. ”

"What are you worried might happen if you and your ex stood in the same room together?" Kravitz asks, unshakable now.

Taako kicks his legs, petulant. “Come _on._ ”

"Surely he won't start a row beside the salad bar."

"Jesus, he might,” Taako says, and winces. “That motherfucker used to burn slots on silencing spells like it was going out of style."

"This is raising so many questions I'm not certain where to begin."

“God, Kravitz, I’m joking!” Taako groans, pained. "Look it's fine, it's nothing, I just don't wanna see him, okay? I know it's stupid!" Taako shifts his legs around so he can roll over onto his side, a comma curled around Kravitz's waist. "Please just let me hide in my room in dignified cowardice."

Kravitz runs a fingertip along the curve of Taako's ear, which elicits a satisfying shiver. "Well, I suppose if it’s dignified.”

“Entirely,” Taako says, in the exaggerated impression of Kravitz’s accent which he uses when feeling bratty. (So, frequently.)

“Have you _really_ not spoken with him at all? Not even once?”

"Trust me, darling, it's better this way."

“But-”

“No seriously, listen,” Taako says, the accent dropped again. He sighs against the skin of Kravitz's thigh. “We've only got the a couple relics left to find, right? So we'll tick those boxes and, you know. Things'll kinda chill out around here. I mean hell, for all I know Lucretia's gonna just lay us all off, like this is kind of a one-trick operation she's got going. So none of this is forever."

"That's true," Kravitz says, neutral.

"Like, we weren't _buddies_ ," Taako mutters. "Once the dust clears we'll probably never see each other again."

A brief flicker through the faces of his own past lovers, many of whom are now a century or more behind him. He asks, more seriously, “And that would be fine with you?”

“Uh.” Taako peers up at him with the eye that’s not squashed closed against his skin. “Sure?”

“If he died tomorrow, you wouldn’t have a single regret?”

Taako actually recoils at that, rolling over onto his back as his hands come up to cover his face. “What the _fuck_ , Krav?!”

“It’s a reasonable question, in my experience,” Kravitz says. Not at all an exaggeration, and not even necessarily personal. An entire subsection of his duties involve interviews with the recently deceased or the newly recaptured, in-depth tours through regret and now-impossible longing which he exhaustively records in their files.

Taako runs his hands back through his hair, big untidy tufts of it sticking up through his fingers. “Okay but it’s not though? Like at _all_?”

“Have you any idea how many souls arrive in the astral plane with exactly this sort of-”

“He has a desk job, he’s not gonna _die_.” Taako drops his arms to the mattress again with twin thumps, slightly out of sync. “Fucking hell.”

“Humor my thought experiment.”

Taako sighs. “What’s there to say? Like, ‘Thanks for all the sex, have a nice life!’” A wince, then, which Kravitz has come to think of as the _“_ I regretted that joke the moment it left my mouth” face -- a regular occurrence when it comes to this topic. “Listen it’s all done with, okay? I’m fine, I’m _sure_ he’s fine, everyone’s fine.”

Kravitz cannot fathom being “fine” with the loss of Taako’s company. But he’s pushed enough for one afternoon, and signals his surrender with a diplomatic hum and a kiss dropped to Taako’s knee.

Taako reaches up to tousle Kravitz’s hair. “Actually no, I take that back,” he murmurs. “I’m suffering terribly.”

Kravitz shifts to lie beside him again -- propped up on an elbow, legs still beneath Taako’s. “Are you.”

“Severe lack of vitamin D,” Taako says, miraculously straight-faced. “Better get on that.”

Kravitz chuckles and kisses his mouth. “You’re absolutely incorrigibly terrible.”

“I’m amazing and you _adore_ me,” Taako says, the accent having returned in full force.

The kiss deepens as Kravitz’s hands slide down his body; find him warm and eager for distraction. “I do at that,” Kravitz murmurs against his lips.

*

Taako initially consigns the “Carpe-diem-live-as-if-you’ll-die-today” lecture to the rapidly-growing pile of cute weirdo shit Kravitz says that Taako’s gonna totally ignore, and steadfastly refuses to acknowledge the twinge he gets whenever he sees the back of an Orcish head - anyone’s, really - in the corridors of the Bureau. It’s not like Brad has contacted _him_ (again), and if he’s taking more circuitous routes than usual to and from training to avoid a face-to-face encounter that’s just because he’s taking the hint.

Eventually he stops thinking about it. The awkward, uncomfortable pain of it fades, until it’s like prodding at a loose tooth, an annoying ache that only worries him when he lets himself notice it. It’s pretty easy to remain distracted when between training (suddenly even more intense than usual, because the Director is a tyrant who hates when Taako, personally, is happy) and the new, mouth-wateringly sexy presence in his life, he doesn’t have much spare time to do anything but sleep, eat, and call Kravitz to schedule in the next time he’s going to see Kravitz.

(They’re not appointments. They’re _dates_ ).

And of course he’s on his way to a date when all this comes to a head. They've long since ditched the Bureau's limited offerings for what Kravitz would probably call ‘our courtship’, and Taako is taking hella advantage of the fact that he can get Kravitz to take them to eat literally anywhere but the damn cafeteria. Tonight it's burgers because why the hell not. He bounces a little on the balls of his feet as they clunkily descend to the floor where he can _finally_ switch to the proper elevator to their apartment, and barely avoids an obviously impatient sigh when the damn thing stops a number of floors too early.

And then the doors open. And it’s Brad, because who else would it be.

Taako is abruptly aware of himself; the bottle of wine in his hand, the rolled up shirtsleeves, one-too-many buttons undone. His hair is out and sways around his shoulders because Kravitz doesn’t need anything to grip-

“Hey,” he says; waves the bottle, awkwardly.

Brad smiles at him. A professional, empty one; Taako doesn’t even rate a smirk, anymore, let alone the bare flashed half-smiles Brad had started to wear when he didn’t think Taako was paying attention. Keeps smiling, a bland nothing expression, as he steps into the elevator. Turns to face the doors as they slide shut, creaking.

Taako’s grip tightens on the neck of the wine as he battles down a wave of resentment, because really, this is _good_ , this is what he _wanted_ ; he can’t be upset about it, but. The hot spike of rejection hits him anyway, dredges up all the _affection_ , unrequited, that he’s been determinedly ignoring since… last time. He stands there for another few moments and then directs his thoughts back to _Kravitz_ in frustration, lets himself be buoyed by an ugly pulse of smugness because Kravitz is fun, and hot as hell, and so what if he’s a little weird, Taako’s used to weird, Taako has _died_ a ton of times since he and Brad last saw each other-

And it’s that - that paralysing flash of fire and pain and terror, not exactly easier but definitely less arresting now that he’s re-lived it a billion times - with Brad right _there_ , the faint citrus-spice-sweat smell of him pulling up a flickering slideshow of images that Taako can’t help but react to, pulse flickering rapidly, because sense memory associations are fucking _bullshit_. All at once his stubbornness dissolves and tips him over the edge into actually-

_Shit_ , he thinks to himself, and sighs. Kravitz might be a weirdo but maybe he’s right about some shit.

“Hey,” he says, against the instinct still screaming at him to keep his mouth shut until this fucking thing is over.

Brad hums, but doesn’t turn.

“Listen, I-” ugh this is worse than he could have imagined. “Brad, look. I don’t… no hard feelings, right?”

“Hard feelings,” Brad repeats, and laughs a small laugh. "I suppose not. Although it would have been good to hear from you."

“Kinda figured it’d be better to not,” Taako says. His voice is thin, but it doesn’t waver, at least. “I needed… not that.”

“Yes,” Brad says. Measured. “I’d gathered.”

Taako is never going to stop bitching at Kravitz about this. Sure, yeah, great, make sure you say what you wanna say in case one of you dies, cool super good advice that isn’t at all going to dump you into the most unpleasant conversation of your life. In an _elevator_.

“Hey, Brad, I-”

Brad turns to look at him, then, and Taako sees his mouth shape one word, stop before he puts air into it, and then say, “Taako,” instead. “It’s all right. I’m glad to see you well.”

Taako is furious at himself. At the start of the arrangement, he would have looked at those words and at Brad’s carefully blank expression and taken it at face value. Now, with the benefit of _months_ hanging around the dude and dealing with his horseshit, he can see- the tightness around the corners of his mouth, the set jaw, the start of a crease between his eyebrows. _Disappointment_. And something else, too, Taako thinks, but he’s tearing his gaze away from Brad’s face to glance at his watch before he can really look at it.

Of course he’s disappointed. Who wouldn’t be. Taako is a good gods damned time.

"Sure," Taako says. Feels hot all over, the prickle of embarrassment, but it's like the wound is being drained, at least. "S’good of you to say. And, same."

Brad hums, and the elevator dings, opens out onto his floor. Taako grabs at his shirtsleeve before he can think too hard about it and says, rapidly, "Seriously, like, I wanted to… I want you to know I-”

Brad gently, but firmly, removes Taako’s grip on his shirt. “It’s all right,” he says. “You don’t have to.” He makes a quick, furtive movement, as though about to reach out and then thinking better of it. “It’s all right. Be well, Taako.”

And then he’s gone, and the doors close after him the same way they would have closed after anyone else, and that seems odd, for some reason; as though there should have been something more significant, some solid emphatic thud, a resounding noise for the undeniable end of whatever the arrangement had been.

“Not a fucking poet, Taako,” Taako says to himself as he _thunks_ his forehead gently against the elevator wall, not quite able to stop thinking about how he might have run that whole interaction differently if he’d known it was coming ( _if you’d known it was coming you would’ve run away entirely_ , says an asshole voice at the back of his head). But the wine is still in his hand, and Kravitz is probably already in his apartment, and he’s got an evening lined up that involves burgers, booze, and boning down, so- who gives a fuck, actually?

The air still smells of lemongrass and he’s never been so pleased to get out of an elevator.

*

Brad gets back to his apartment on autopilot. Long-ingrained habits take over to carry the nightly routine through on muscle-memory - satchel placed carefully in its spot by the door, keys in the bowl at the entryway, tie off and curled neatly in the dresser drawer. The apartment is as tidy as ever, which he normally likes, but for some reason today it exaggerates the emptiness.

He had plans for this evening, he's certain. Had a list, things he was looking forward to, before running into Taako knocked over the carefully assembled house of cards of his mood. It's all gone out of his head, now.

"Don't mope, Bradson," he says aloud, in a reasonable approximation of Taako's voice. It does pull him out of the fugue enough to take three steps toward the kitchen and then decide, suddenly, to change up the routine a little.

He's on his knees and scrabbling under the bed for the suitcase before he even really thinks about it. It's as worn as ever, leather soft with age, and as he strokes a gentle hand over it the stirred dust tickles his nostrils. He hasn't dragged it out since he was hired.

One of the latches is stuck and he has to work at it to get it loose, but the thing finally gives way and the suitcase pops open in a burst of musty air. It still somehow recalls the attic at home, and for a moment all he can do is stare at it; tracing the lines of the turntable with a misplaced, artless sort of reverence.

All at once he's up, has it propped on the edge of the bed as he digs around in the back of his wardrobe for the crate he knows is there - full of records, stashed out of sight where he wouldn't have to explain them to anyone. Seats himself cross-legged on the floor, getting dust all over his work trousers, as he sorts through a carefully curated collection he's lugged from job to job since college. He hasn't _listened_ to them in years, but they were there, and that had always been enough until now.

He finds what he's looking for eventually; slides it out of the cover, the smell of the cardboard and the rustle of the plastic sheeting dragging up even more long-forgotten memories. But it's more than that, too; a sense, a feeling, a conjuring of time and place and people and _being_ which has taken on the soft-focus vignette of nostalgia. Lifts the record carefully onto the turntable, strokes his thumb along the edge of it.

He gives the player one last, affectionate pat, then takes himself off to the shower. The day is sitting heavily on him even without the encounter in the elevator and he feels grimy and tired, worn down. He sets the water just short of scalding and lets the bathroom fog over and the weight of it all starts to lift, fall away, as the fugue state takes over again. He washes, automatic, keeps his mind carefully blank.

But it’s a fool’s errand; his thoughts keep returning to Taako, the way he’d looked - relaxed, at least until he’d processed who was joining him. The tense expression then, the stubborn set to his jaw.

Brad knows that expression intimately. Has seen it many times, at least once prettily streaked in tears and semen.

“Shit,” he grinds out; desperately tries to rein in his thoughts but that particular image has already sent a flashed wave of arousal straight through him, and his cock is already nagging insistently for his attention. He wavers. Curls his hand around it, and even a simple grip is so good, he can’t help a small noise. And then- grits his teeth and turns the hot water off.

He emerges ten minutes later, freezing and entirely disinterested in his dick, and figures that’s the end of it. It’s always worked before.

He puts the record on. It's been so long, and yet immediately his brain is partly occupied tracing the well-worn paths of familiar chords, humming a half-remembered harmony as he climbs to his feet, straightens his pyjamas, heads back to the kitchen. He's still got two of the ciders he made with Taako in mind. He's got enough groceries to make dinner.

He's halfway through the album, 80% of the way through the bottle and five minutes from finishing with dinner when he remembers why this album was a favourite. Can't help the roll of warmth in his gut as the baseline starts up, a slow and seductive sway that he pressed into service a number of times, with a number of lovers; a superimposed set of images in his mind's eye that he'd long let slip to time suddenly sharper, clearer than ever.

And then he realises how precarious a position he's created for himself - this mood of wistful sentimentality, these records and their deliberately, carefully curated intent, the spark and fizz of alcohol in his blood. The fresh new image of fine golden hair swinging loose around collarbones bared in what Brad figures was a deliberate, calculated display, for someone else.

"No," he says out loud to himself. Realises when he hears it that he's slipped into Orcish, the guttural sound of it shattering the mood, but it doesn't make any difference to his cock.

He's got to pretend it's-

Got to pretend he's not-

Not dragging the heel of his spare hand over his cock through his pyjamas, shuddering at the pressure, the ice cold of the shower a fuzzy, distant memory by now-

"No," he repeats, weaker, already knowing the protest is futile, but he continues on anyway; pulls his meal together, tidies the kitchen, hopes briefly that the mundanity of chores will dispel the want sitting quiet but insistent at the base of his spine. It doesn’t, and eating does nothing for it either, so that by the time he’s cleared away the kitchen and finished the second cider there’s nowhere to go but to-

“I’m not doing this in my own bed,” Brad tells himself.

So, the couch. Where he’s also fucked Taako, pressed facedown over one of the arms, his own wrists neatly fitting into the small of his back.

If he’s doing this he has to commit to it, he knows that much. Being half-hearted about it will only make everything worse. Thankfully the music and the alcohol have done half of the work, and his memory of- Taako. Taako was on his way to a date, wasn’t he? A bottle of wine, shirt carefully undone, anticipation sunk deep in the lines of his posture.

Hell. A _date_ . With Brad’s replacement. He doesn’t know anything about Taako’s dating history, a realisation that pangs, but. He knows enough about _their_ history to understand his tastes.

And so.

Somebody larger than Taako, then. Kinder than Brad, probably, because that’s what got them into trouble in the first place. Somebody who’ll ask him nicely before pressing him up against a wall and biting a vicious bruise into his shoulder, shoving a hastily-slicked finger inside him as he whines and ruts uselessly against the wall.

Brad shudders, tries to redirect his thoughts even as he’s humming the spell he just imagined and using it to liberally slick his cock. He can just - picture Taako being steadily, slowly fucked by the disembodied dick of the stranger who somehow tricked his way onto the base, without letting his own memories take over. And he does, for a while; is moderately successful, knows how to embroider the fiction with just enough tiny, perfectly recalled details - the hitch in Tako’s breathing when somebody pushes inside him, the begging rock of his hips into whatever he’s pressed up against, the thready little mewling noises he makes when something’s shoved into his mouth.

It’s good, as far as jerk-off fantasies go, but it isn’t quite enough, and he keeps getting distracted thinking about Taako in the elevator; about just doing what he’d almost let himself do and seizing his chin, tipping his face up to kiss him.

It wouldn’t have been fair. He knows that, but he thinks about it anyway, wistful, his hand still moving idly on his cock, and then with intent as the image goes heady and intoxicating. Taako’s mouth opening on a moan underneath him. Pressing Taako back against the cold steel wall, pinning him there and letting him squirm.

Hitting the emergency stop.

“That’s enough,” he says out loud to himself but it’s too late; his mind is obligingly filling in all the details of how it could have gone.

A flash of stubborn fire in Taako’s eyes, some smart remark about misuse of emergency procedures, even as he lets Brad grab him hard around the thighs, lift him and press him back against the wall, kissing hard. Biting hard, the coppery tang of blood bursting into their mouths. Taako wraps his legs around Brad’s waist and grinds down and shudders, swearing a little when Brad’s claws bite into his skin.

_Come on, Bradson_ , Taako says, bitchy and difficult as ever. _Response time can’t be long on the fuckin’ moon_.

_Shut up_ , Brad says, bites down on Taako’s collarbone hard enough for him to yelp, then moan as he lolls forward into Brad’s grip. The scent of his hair, a fruity-sugar tang muted by sunlight, is overpowering as silken strands rub against Brad’s cheek. He’s loosely wrapped his arms around Brad’s neck and grinds down, lazily, their dicks rubbing between their clothes.

_‘Kay c’mon you’re_ killing _me here_ , Taako complains, hot breath against Brad’s neck sending a wave of goosebumps over his skin. _Let’s do it. Stop stalling_.

_Manners, pet_ , Brad says; shoves him back into the wall, for good measure. Enjoys the crackly little cry that bursts forth from his throat. _You’ll do as you’re told_.

_Like hell_.

_You will_ , Brad says, nosing in to speak directly into his ear. _Because you’re mine_. Taako shudders, grinds down harder, ear flicking away and back. He leans out of Brad’s hold but there’s nowhere to go and he must settle for glaring at the side of Brad’s head.

The ear is bright pink, hot to the touch. Brad knows by now that means it’s unbearably sensitive, that Taako will shudder away from the barest of touches, too much, too intense. So he licks a line up Taako’s ear.

The elf jerks in his hold, struggles, a hand over Brad’s shoulders raking sharp nails up his back, hard enough to sting. The growl he makes is all feral animal.

_Hmm_ , Brad says, catches the rim of his ear between his teeth just to hear Taako make the same noise again. _That wasn’t very nice_.

He sets Taako down on his feet, nudges his chin upwards, delights in the furious expression. _Turn around. Hands above your head_.

_You can’t be serious_ , Taako mutters, but he places the wine bottle carefully at his feet and turns around; presses his forearms to the wall, wrists neatly crossed, and arches his back to press his ass into Brad’s crotch.

_Subtle_ , Brad says.

_You love it_ , Taako says. _Now fuck me_.

Brad holds him there, against the wall. His grip on Taako’s wrists is unforgivingly tight, savage, and he kicks Taako’s feet apart. The sudden jolt downwards has Taako hanging from Brad’s grip, tugging against it, a choked gasp wrenched out of him before he presses up on his toes to loosen the pressure of it.

_That’s gonna- you’re going to leave bruises-_

_Are you complaining_? Brad murmurs, a fake-sweet tone like syrup. Taako says nothing, for a moment, still struggling uselessly against the hold, until all at once he relaxes, lets himself hang.

_No, I’m not_ , he says. His voice is thick with desire. _I’m not_.

Brad’s pulse kicks up a notch, pounding wildly in his throat; Taako’s _date_ is waiting for him, now, is probably downstairs wondering where he is-

He reaches around Taako’s hip, undoes button and fly one handed, roughly shoves the denim down over his hips. Taako laughs a breathy laugh as he wriggles his hips to help. _Be easier if you let me use my hands_.

_I can send you downstairs now if it’s easy you want_ , Brad says. _Would you like that? Spell you up against the wall and send the elevator down to your floor for him to find you?_ He hums a quick series of notes, breaches Taako steadily with a newly-slicked finger, slower than he’d like, but it’s worth it for how it makes Taako struggle again, try to push back against his hand.

Brad keeps it steady, gentle. Contrary to Taako’s expectations, if the way he struggles to shove backwards for friction, for depth, tells Brad anything - the sound of his voice getting thinner as he whimpers and breathes shallow and sharp. The grind of it as he mutters a curse and says, _seriously, fuck you, get_ on _with it_ -

This is Brad’s favorite part, always has been - Taako, hating how desperate he is for it but not quite able to pull away. He wallows in it, grins viciously behind Taako’s back, coos, _Oh but I’m not_ finished _with you yet, pet_.

He’s lining up anyway, nudging the head of his cock against Taako, enjoying the slide and catch of it against his skin, trying not to laugh when Taako hisses, _If you don’t fuck me I’m gonna fireball you wandless out of the wall of this fucking elevator shaft you_ asshole-

It’s his tone Brad enjoys the most; that he manages to come across as arrogant and demanding, even now, even _here_ , pulled apart and reduced down to this, a quivering mess begging to be fucked. It drives him crazy, if he’s being honest, has been part of the reason he chased Taako so hard. Apparently it still drives him crazy, because he can’t help but push forward with a low grunt into Taako’s ear; a noise that turns into another laugh when Taako wails, the breath punched out of him.

Brad fucks him hard and slow and deep, Taako pulling back against the grip on his wrists to meet Brad’s thrusts, babbling desperately for Brad to touch him, press him against the wall, anything. But Brad ignores it, concentrates on the slow build in his gut, the tight heat on his cock.

_Please_ , Taako says, hoarse. _Please, Brad, please touch me_ . Whimpers, his head dropping forward to stare at the ground as he begs. _Please_.

_No_ , Brad says, the thought coalescing in his mind, sitting on his couch in his apartment, beginning to tremble with the start of his own orgasm. _No, you don’t get to come from this_.

_You fucker_ -

The thought of what he’s about to do tears through him, white-hot, and Brad distantly feels his toes curl into the carpet beneath his feet. _You can wait_ , he continues, ignoring Taako’s swearing. _You can let him deal with you. I want him to know, I want you both to know. While he fucks you, still dripping. I want you to know you’re mine_.

Brad’s not exactly proud of how utterly the thought of that electrifies him, how quickly and intensely he comes thinking about it; about showing Taako - and whoever else he’s fucking - who he belonged to, first. He keeps moving his hand long after he’s too sensitive, wrenches the last of the orgasm out of himself until he can’t bear it anymore, thighs trembling from holding them steady. Hollowed out, a keenly felt absence. The creeping advance of a self-flagellating guilt, trickling cold down his spine.

He tries to cut off the fantasy before he can think about the aftermath, but it slips through anyway. It’s not quite as easy to build, not without knowing anything more about Taako’s new lover than he does, but - Brad knows what he wanted, selfishly, to do. To kiss Taako properly, deep and earnest, the sort of flayed-bare affection he’d shied away from while they were actually… together.

But after that Brad would still have let him go.

Brad is a practical person. This was inevitable, this part of the process, but that doesn’t mean he has to dwell on it. He’d been avoiding it - a foolish, stubborn hope that he wouldn’t have to - but the last scraps of plausible deniability have evaporated, so. Time to move on. He knows how to keep himself occupied. His work is, after all, very busy; there’s another Reclaimer mission coming up.

*

Taako doesn't want to think about the way that Brad smelled. Or the sound of his breath in that close, closed space. Or the fleeting warmth of his hand on Taako's wrist. The experience of being near him, all those details renewed and sharpened. Taako doesn't want any of it. Not like this, not _now_.

He enjoys his evening out on the town with cheerful ferocity. Drinks too much wine and laughs too loudly, and doesn't care if he's making a scene. Is determined not to care about a single thing aside from how happy he is to be sitting at this cafe table with Kravitz, their fingers woven together as they watch the evening crowds wander by. A normal, pleasant evening beside a man who openly adores him, and who asks for very little aside from honesty and companionship and to be absolutely ruined in bed.

Some other less complicated night, he might have suggested they get a drink after dinner, or a stroll through some charming cobblestoned neighborhood. A stunningly handsome man on his arm and money in his pocket to spend on whatever caught their fancy.

He doesn't want to linger out in the world. He feels ravenous, desperate, like a starving man who's smelled something baking through an open window.  His hands are tugging out the tails of Kravitz's shirt before the portal is even entirely open, and once they're through that uncanny shiver in the air he pulls Kravitz around, drags him in and kisses him. Hard enough to elicit a startled moan into his mouth.

He pulls back just far enough to ask, "Okay?" He's answered by eyes dark with blown-pupil lust and a pink tongue running along full lips. Kravitz's hands are fisted in the front of his shirt as the two of them dive back into each other, his own hunger reflected back in the bruising crush of their mouths together, in a throaty moan that jolts an octave higher as he shoves a hand down the front of Kravitz's trousers.

The feel of Kravitz's cock in his palm, the velvet heat and the slick smear of precum, roar through him with wildfire urgency. He crowds Kravitz toward the bed, forces him into a graceless backward stumble until his legs hit the frame and he falls with a startled laugh onto the mattress. Hands catching at Taako's arms to tug him down after, a soft whuff of breath forced out of him by Taako's weight on his chest.

Taako wants to disappear into this. To lose himself hopelessly in the angles of Kravitz's body, the elegant path of his limbs and his torso, the curves of his jaw and his small rounded ears, all warm and good-smelling, all impossibly improbably perfect. This beautiful man, made of light and spirit but no less solid beneath him. No longer new but still somehow a novelty, and Taako feels a little giddy as he tugs open buttons and rucks up the front of Kravitz’s shirt, bends down to suck one small dark nipple into his mouth. “You’re so good,” he says, muffled by skin; flicks the hardened nub with his tongue and then moves on to the other, elbows to either side of Kravitz’s ribs and hands fisted in the hem of his shirt, now bunched up under his arms. “God, Krav, I want you so bad.”

“You’ve got me,” Kravitz rasps. “You’ve got whatever you want of me, you-” The rest is swallowed by another kiss, becomes a pleading whimper as Taako’s hand frees him from his fly.

Taako kisses along a slender neck and grinds their hips together, the front of his pants against Kravitz’s bared cock; licks a greedy path up one taut tendon line, takes a pinch of flesh between his teeth and bites, hard. Too hard, he worries, in the split second before Kravitz arches up and off the bed, gasping in obvious pleasure. “I wanna fuck you,” Taako says, and bites him again. Harder. Remembers the feel of teeth — of tusks — on his own neck, his shoulders, the insides of his thighs, how good it was. How shockingly perfect. He wants to give good things to Kravitz, wants to make Kravitz feel as he has felt, pinned and pulled apart.

He didn’t understand, before, how terrifying it is to be the one who pushes; the one who tests the boundaries of what’s allowed, and of what’s wanted.

But Kravitz isn’t him, and Taako isn’t...

He noses up under Kravitz’s jaw, lips on a flutter of false pulse. “Did that hurt?”

“Yes.”

As the question coalesces, Taako’s own heart thunders with a rush of fear, swirling with lust and with his desperate need to _know_. “Do you want it to hurt?” he murmurs — quietly, to mask the shake in his voice.

Kravitz’s hands are on his back, fingertips digging in. He breathes a soft laugh against Taako’s forehead. “Yes.”

Taako pulls back to look at him; to search his face and be sure that they’ve both understood this turn before he takes it. “You’ll tell me if you want me to stop.”

“Yes,” Kravitz drops his arms to the pillow above him, wrists crossed just over his head; panting a little, which must be for show, but Taako doesn’t care. It’s a show for _him_ , and he understands. He remembers the other side of this.

He closes a hand over Kravitz’s wrists, not gently, and pushes them down into the mattress. Pictures his own fingers and speaks a word of slickness, then reaches down to palm Kravitz’s cock, the heel of his hand pressing it flat against Kravitz’s stomach, making a mess of him. Kravitz moans and rocks his hips, twisting in Taako’s grip. Strains upward to try and kiss Taako’s mouth, whispering “Please” into the air between their lips.

Taako’s hand slides further down. “Please what?”

Kravitz’s tongue darts out, just catching Taako’s upper lip. “Fuck me,” he says, then gasps as Taako pushes a finger inside him, right at the edge of too roughly.

Taako has fucked him before. Kravitz prefers to receive in that department, and Taako has been happy to oblige him, honestly grateful for the shift away from old routines, a return to something closer to how he’d always seen himself -- the orchestrator, the one who winds up and draws out. He’s had Kravitz’s legs up over his shoulders, Kravitz folded in half beneath him as they kiss, messy with eagerness.

This is a different thing. This is biting hard at Kravitz’s ear as he slips in a second finger; a third, watching for signs of going too quickly and finding only want. Gasping moans encouraging him to push harder, to put real force behind the movement of his hand, to crush the bones of Kravitz’s wrists together, pinned against the sheets.

Weeks of avoidance, every day since Refuge spent desperately distracting himself with practice and cooking and every scrap of Kravitz he can snatch up from the Astral Plane; chasing after life and joy but also running, still. Filling every moment up to leave no room for longing, no chance at all for looking back at what he’s decided, at what he’s lost. What’s gone from his life for good.

Brad beside him in the elevator, well within reach. The familiar scent of laundry detergent -- the same as his sheets -- and of the conditioner Taako used on the nights when he stayed over. Of the sweat he’s licked off the side of Brad’s neck. Large hands curled loosely at his sides, cords of muscle beneath green skin; the irrepressible image of those fingers in his mouth. Those nails raked down his back. Those broad, blunt thumbs twin points of aching pressure on his hips.   

Taako surrenders. Allows a month or more of frustrated desire, his body craving what his words rejected, to rush into the front of his mind and sing along his nerves straight down to his dick. Remembers the perfect agony of being lifted by his hair and twists his fingers into Kravitz’s; grips it close to the scalp and tightens his fist -- fractionally, slowly -- and pulls Kravitz’s head back, throat exposed, until his gasps go thin and thready from the angle. Memories of pain applied precisely to his own body, of being played like an instrument in Brad’s arms, now enlisted in service of making this man cry out with fractured pleasure.

One last ruthless curl of his fingers inside Kravitz, startling a gasp, and then he withdraws his hand and slides it along the inside of a thigh, takes big fleshy pinches of skin that make Kravitz’s legs twitch, before moving back down and around to cup a delicious handful of ass. Still holding Kravitz’s head back by his hair, kissing and biting his neck, his earlobes, roughly pulling him wider open, cock pressed up against slick softened warmth. Taako digs his teeth into Kravitz’s shoulder and rolls his hips forward, nails digging into his back as he comes up flush against the backs of Kravitz’s legs.

“You’re so good,” Taako rumbles. He sucks a bruise into the soft skin beneath one corner of Kravitz’s jaw, unhurried, delighting in how Kravitz squirms under and around him. “So _patient_.”

“Don’t tease me,” Kravitz whines, looking up at Taako past the swells of his cheekbones; his voice edged in what sounds to be real desperation. “You’ve been fucking me with your eyes all evening, don’t make me wait any longer _now_.”

Taako pulls out a fraction, just far enough for a satisfying thrust back into him. Again, harder, sliding in and out of the tight perfect warmth of Kravitz’s body, rocking him against the sheets; meandering along his throat with teasing nips of teeth. “I think maybe I’ll make you do whatever I want,” Taako says, the drawl varnishing over a nervous flutter in his chest, the mounting tension in his groin that demands he abandon this game of waiting and fuck the man beneath him in earnest.

“And what is it you want?” Kravitz murmurs, then gasps as Taako’s fist tightens again in his hair.

Taako’s heart is thundering; his head gone light from nerves and the quickness of his pulse. From thinking about the words in his throat, stuck just short of speaking by the fear of looking foolish, or worse. Is he really going to do this? Actually seriously turn this corner, eyes-open and willing? Skate so close to the edge of what he’s told himself he doesn’t want anymore; no longer wants to even think about except...

Except for how he thinks about it constantly. Is thinking about it now, with his cock buried deep inside this man, this new person, Kravitz. Kravitz, who he likes so much. So _much_ , and whom he wants to break as he was broken. To have what he can’t.

Taako licks his lips. “Beg,” he says.

Kravitz bucks up to meet him, arms tight across his shoulders and legs coming up to hook around his waist. “ _Gods_.”

A kiss to the point of Kravitz’s chin. “You gotta beg me for it, handsome.”

“Please,” Kravitz murmurs, immediate. Unselfconscious.

“Mmmmmm.” Taako wiggles his hips a little as he hums, performing thoughtfulness. Runs fingers back through Kravitz’s hair. “Yeah, naw, not really convinced...”

“ _Please_ ,” Kravitz says again, the winking cheek all sloughed away. “Darling, please, I can’t stand it.”

Taako can’t stand it, not tonight; can’t stand waiting any longer when he’s this keyed up, brittle with the need to _do_ , the need to crash forward into this, into what he has _now_. “You’re so good,” he says again, fingers all wound up in Kravitz’s hair, and fucks into him again. Kisses and bites at Kravitz’s mouth and settles into a rhythm, harsher than what they’ve done before, harder, Kravitz encouraging him with thighs squeezing his waist and hands pushed into his hair.

“Please,” Kravitz pants. Arches up off the bed in a way Taako immediately, intimately recalls, an effort to win some friction against his cock, some relief. Kravitz cups his skull and pulls him in for another kiss, whines against his mouth when he slows his pace again. “I’m close, darling I’m so close, please-”

Taako dips his hand down between their stomachs, finds Kravitz’s cock with his fingers and laughs, breathless and giddy, as Kravitz writhes underneath him. And all the details bleed together, then, pleasure building, Kravitz wrapped around him and begging to be fucked, to be touched, and soon the words don’t matter, just the cresting relentless wave of it all, the willingness to make a spectacle of how badly he wants this.

Kravitz gasps out Taako’s name as he shudders through his orgasm, and then both of Taako’s hands are holding his face as they kiss, cum in Kravitz’s hair and on his cheek and neither of them caring. Taako comes inside of him soon after, and while that relief ramps down his desperation he keeps rocking in and out of Kravitz for some time past, their kisses gentled and slowed, until he’s finally too soft to push back in again.

Taako lays down on Kravitz with his full weight -- he’s learned that he can get away with functionally unlimited squashing, and he wants very much to be as close to Kravitz as he can. To feel how their topographies fit together.  “Jesus,” he says, a sigh against Kravitz’s neck. “Holy shit.”

Kravitz hums, all languid smug contentment, fingers tracing light circles around the points of Taako’s shoulder blades. “I am quite good,” he murmurs. “A real catch, as they say.”

“I wanna give you shit for that so bad,” Taako mumbled, “but I can’t....” He lifts an arm, makes an exaggerated noise of effort and then lets it flop back down onto the bed. “I’m a husk. You dun’ emptied me right out.”

“This is all taking a turn into cum fetishism that I wouldn't have expected from-”

Taako groans and shoves ineffectually at Kravitz’s chest. “Ugh no I take it back you’re the worst get out of my bed,” he says, levering himself maybe half an inch up before abandoning any pretense. “You’re fired. I’m firing you.”

Kravitz chuckles, nuzzling at Taako’s ear. “See that’s surprising, because I’m fairly sure my interview went _exceedingly_ well-” He laughs when the ear flicks against his face.

He’s so fucking good, it’s hard to even know how what to say, how to _act_. So good that all the jokes and all the soft words, every way he’s shown Kravitz the place he’s made for them, sketched out the shape of what’s growing in his chest -- none of it feels like enough. “You got me,” he says, burrowing in closer. Then, “I like you.”

“I like you, too,” Kravitz says, quiet.

“I like you so _much_ .” It sounds stupid and inadequate but he’s bursting with the need to say _something_ and this is all he can scrape together, the best he can manage to do.

Kravitz pushes Taako’s shoulder, just a little, to signal he wants to move. And they rearrange themselves so they’re facing on the bed, both on their sides, hands clasped on the scrap of mattress between them.

“I’m very happy,” Kravitz murmurs. “I’m glad we did that together.” He smiles. “I’m glad that you asked me.”

Taako squeezes his hand. “You’re just...devastatingly hot, is the thing.”

“In a manner which is improved by making me beg for orgasms?”

Taako groans even louder than before and tries to pull away and roll over, Kravitz laughing and tugging him back. “Jesus Fantasy _Christ_ you don’t have to _say_ it!”

“I think you’ll find that I do, actually.” Kravitz chuckles and lifts their hands to his lips, kissing Taako’s knuckles.

And so it goes, for a while. They laugh and tease each other, take turns getting up to use the bathroom, clean themselves up with a spell, pick their clothes up off the floor at Kravitz’s insistence, snuggle back down into bed. Warm and sated, with nowhere to be until mid-morning.

Taako is very tired. Wants, badly, to give up on being a Responsible Adult-- on the better-ish version of himself he’s been vaguely aiming at -- and go to sleep with Kravitz’s body folded in his arms. He wants to skip saying anything at all about what had happened before, about the unspoken shadow that’s been looming over him since earlier that evening.

That’s what he wants, but...

“I, uh... I ran into him today,” Taako says. No need to specify — there’s only the one nameless “him” in their talk.

“I wondered,” Kravitz says, but mercifully doesn’t explain. “What happened?”

“We talked a little. It was fine.” Taako sighs into Kravitz’s hair. “Weird.”

“Well, I suppose that’s to be expected.”

“Yeah,” Taako says. “He was really nice about it.”

“Oh?”

“Mm.” Taako’s arm around Kravitz’s middle tightens. “Listen, I’m only gonna say this next bit because you like, _specifically_ said you want me to tell you shit like this, okay? Like I would infinitely prefer not to, but-”

“Go ahead,” Kravitz says, gently. Serious.

Taako swallows. “I’m, ah... I think I’m still really into him.” Another sigh. “I’m definitely still really into him. I thought maybe it’d have been long enough that, you know. Maybe it wouldn’t all still feel like...” He presses his face into Kravitz’s hair, kisses his neck. “I’m sorry, I know it’s shitty. I know it’s really, really shitty, and I promise I’m not gonna-”

“Taako.” He feels Kravitz’s hand cover his. “It’s sweet that you’re worried for me but honestly, I don’t mind. You may have gathered that I’m not an especially jealous person.” Kravitz squeezes his fingers.  “If you want to see other men, that’s something we can talk about.”

“Okay,” Taako murmurs.

“Do you think that he-”

“No.” Too sharp, but Taako’s pulse spikes at the very thought of it, for a whole big thorny thicket of reasons he can’t let himself consider at all. “Okay like... putting aside the fact that this is an ‘absolutely not’ kind of a situation,” he says in a rush, “Krav, I’m not gonna do that to you. I don’t... I’m not gonna run off and do something you’re not a part of, that’s not what I want.”

He can feel Kravitz’s breath on the back of his hand. “An ‘absolutely not’ kind of a situation?”

Too exhausted to have an argument about it, Taako closes his eyes and leans in even closer, breathing in the smell of Kravitz’s skin, his curls. Remembers Brad’s face in the harsh overhead light and the disappointment there. Taako knows that he fucked this up. He knows he made things messy. “Listen,” he mumbles against Kravitz’s neck, “I get the vibe that he’s... you know. Like he wasn’t a dick about it but...” Brad’s false smile settling into something real, sad and distant. Brad turning away from him and the doors closing, the moment gone. “He seemed really tired and. I dunno. Like he was just… done with my bullshit, I guess.”

“I see.”

Taako’s hand is flat on Kravitz’s chest, feeling the rise and fall of it. The thrum of his heart. Both of them fake, but that doesn’t matter. Kravitz is real enough, however he’s put together, and he’s here. “You were right,” Taako says. “This is better.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah. At least we got to...I dunno. Get on the same page, I guess. Like at least now I know.”

Kravitz strokes the back of Taako’s hand with his thumb. “Now you know what, exactly?”

Taako laughs, soft and a little chagrined. “That some shit was just never gonna happen.”

*

_[sigh]_

_Taako, it’s ah. It’s Bradson. Brad._

_I suppose I should have expected to go to voicemail..._

_I'm at my mother's house. That's where I went for the weekend, I just got in a couple hours ago. I'm actually in my old bedroom right now. You'd laugh if you saw it. She left up all my posters of weedy rocker bards. I should bring back some of my records, I think you'd like them._

_[sigh]_

_Gods, this is a terrible way to have a conversation._

_[pause]_

_I should have called sooner….I didn't want to do this in a voice message, but..._

_Taako, I’m sorry. I should have stopped. It wasn't right to put you in that position in the first place, let alone…_

_I’m sorry. I was greedy, and a coward, and I knew better. I just..._

_[pause]_

_I don't really know how to say this. But…_ not _saying things has landed us both here. So._

_[long shaky exhale]_

_All right. All right._

_I'm sorry, I'm not very good at this sort of thing._

_[pause]_

_I care about you, Taako. Very much. I’ve done a poor job of showing you that. But I’d… I would like to. If that's what you want. If you want that from me._

_[pause]_

_I'll clear my schedule. Wherever you want to meet, whenever, I'll manage it._

_[pause]_

_I, ah._

_I’ll see you soon._

_I miss you._

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [My Heart Is A Wheel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x08taw4XAmc), by Megan Washington
> 
> RQT and Goose would like to thank each other for going along with this Project, which began as two very short stories being Frankensteined together and rapidly evolved into *GESTURES*
> 
> Thanks also to Mu for the beta, and to Gulch for the yelling/emotional support in these trying times.
> 
> Please note also that the ah...*coughs* final section was a collaborative effort to which all four of us contributed our thoughts and tears.
> 
> [@Wildgoosery](https://twitter.com/Wildgoosery) & [@rqtheory_](https://twitter.com/rqtheory_)


End file.
